Highland Railway D9 Coach...progress



Lochgorm Kits' HR D9 Luggage Composite Coach

 The coach body is pinned down to a piece of MDF to keep it flat. I've added a complete floor to the coach as well as fitting the four partitions that will stabilise the structure. The ends are now double, forming a slot into which a tongue soldered to the roof will locate to keep it in place; none of the roof bracing parts supplied in the Lochgorm kit will be used, though the edges will be thickened.




Details of the coach interior.

The window openings have been doubled in thickness by soldering a surround in place; the doors in addition to this have a droplight which makes them triple thickness. On the rear edges of the droplights I've soldered thin wires to locate the glazing. The glazing of the doors and windows will be held in place by the inner skin of the partition, though the glazing of the windows will have to be of thicker material than that of the doors. The glazing will in effect fit into the slot formed by the inner and outer skins of the coach.* The door hinges are made from short lengths of n/s rod. The slots into which they locate are oversize so I've soldered small plates behind them; similarly door handles are fixed into short lengths of tube before they are soldered into the oversize locating holes in the door.

*The idea for the double-skinning of the coach derives from the design of Bob Goodyear's superb set of Hull and Barnsley coaches, which are now marketed by LGM.




HR D9 chassis

 I soldered a series of small ( 0.45mm ) brass plates round the outside of top of the chassis on which the coach body will rest, these represent the compressed rubber cushioning pads on the real thing. The body is then held in place by four 10BA bolts, one on each corner of the vehicle.   

HR D9 6-wheel coach progress

HR D19: Wheel sets in place in chassis.

I hear that LGM will have some cast brass grab handles for Highland Rly. coaches available very soon. I'd like to fit them while the coach sides are still in the flat, so while I await them, I've turned my attention to the chassis again. The "Cleminson" system I'm using is made by "Ambis" and available from Hobby Holidays. It ensures that the outer wheel sets steer into and out of curves and the centre set moves laterally... and you can build in as much rocking movement as you like. The outer wheel sets have brakes and their associated rigging, the centre set doesn't. I've used both Slaters' and Ambis' Cleminson systems now on my 6-wheel coaches... I think that next time I'll just design something simple myself.

One of the upper footboards can be seen in place. I thickened all the footboards by sweating an extra layer of metal to them to bring them from 0.45mm up to 0.8mm, or about 1½" full size, which I think looks much less flimsy.